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SPIRIT<br />
THE<br />
BOn <strong>Air</strong> <strong>Baptist</strong> <strong>Church</strong><br />
March/April/May 2013<br />
Young Adults<br />
Serve in SOuth-<br />
West Virginia<br />
Pg. 2<br />
What’s your story?<br />
Pg. 3<br />
Green Lights, Yellow<br />
Lights...But No Red Lights!<br />
Pg. 4<br />
From Apprehension...<br />
to adventure!<br />
Pg. 6<br />
I <strong>Believe</strong><br />
Pg. 7<br />
Kakki Aydlotte,<br />
A Woman after<br />
God’s Own Heart<br />
Pg. 8<br />
Cover photo © 2012 Dennis Waterman<br />
...increasing numbers of transformed lives
Young Adults Serve in<br />
SOuthWest Virginia<br />
by Valerie Carter<br />
Good Friday Service<br />
March 29 • 7:30 p.m.<br />
All campuses join for worship in the<br />
Buford Road Campus Sanctuary<br />
Easter Sunday<br />
Worship Services<br />
March 31<br />
Buford Road Campus<br />
8 & 11 a.m.<br />
Traditional • Sanctuary<br />
9:30 & 11 a.m.<br />
The Gathering • Commons<br />
“Looking into the eyes of the ones we built<br />
the ramps for made this mission trip amazing,”<br />
said 23-year-old Tommy Cunningham. Whitt<br />
Whittaker, 25 years old, is motivated to serve<br />
the Lord on mission because it is his calling<br />
to use his skills to help others! On this trip,<br />
ramps were built for two senior men. They<br />
were very grateful and amazed that these young adults, together with<br />
Rob Rahmlow, traveled “all the way from Richmond just to do this for<br />
them!”<br />
We have been in a partnership with S.W. Virginia for two years. We<br />
have sent over 40 people on 5 mission trips. This was our first intergenerational<br />
experience, and Jake Maxwell, our Young Adult Pastor, led<br />
well alongside Steve Marshall, BABC Southwest Virginia Partnership<br />
Coordinator. Their service is a testimony to what it means to join God<br />
on mission. “I want to keep myself in a position to be able to hear the<br />
needs of others and become the person who answers prayers by sharing<br />
my time and talents to help them achieve what they have been praying<br />
for,” says Whitt.<br />
James River Campus<br />
11 a.m. James River High School<br />
Auditorium<br />
Robious Hall CAMPUS<br />
10:30 a.m. Spanish-speaking<br />
Service<br />
6 p.m. English-speaking<br />
Service<br />
2<br />
June 1<br />
Yard Sale<br />
June 1<br />
Yard Sale<br />
8 a.m.<br />
BABC Parking lot<br />
all funds support<br />
student missions!<br />
Sponsored by BABC Young Adults<br />
Donations & volunteers welcome!<br />
For info June 1 contact:<br />
Yard Sale<br />
jake.maxwell@bonairbaptist.org<br />
2013 BABC Student Ministry<br />
D DGEBALL<br />
TournamenT<br />
Are you ready to give your dodgeball wings?<br />
Saturday, March 16, 2013<br />
9 a.m.-4 p.m.<br />
$10 per player per bracket<br />
Space is limited so register now! www.bonairbaptist.org<br />
For info contact:<br />
henry.smith@bonairbaptist.org
What’s your story?<br />
by Beth McKenney<br />
We all have them—those habits of<br />
thinking; a little voice in your head<br />
telling you what to expect from the<br />
world and what your place is in it. Most of<br />
the time we aren’t even conscious of how<br />
these stories shape our lives. But when our<br />
narratives are wrong, we are led into trouble.<br />
In The Good and Beautiful God, James Bryan<br />
Smith helps us identify the false narratives<br />
we have about God and to replace them<br />
with truth. The book is excellent on its own, but you’ll benefit more by<br />
getting together with others to study and discuss the book’s lessons.<br />
That’s what I did during The Good and Beautiful God sermon series,<br />
and I learned a number of things during that time.<br />
I learned that I’m not the only one who struggles sometimes to believe<br />
that “God is Good.” When we wrestle with tough questions in<br />
the company of fellow Christians, it may or may not bring us closer to<br />
answers, but it can bring us closer to each other.<br />
I learned I had my own false narrative about God. Growing up as the<br />
fifth of five children, I observed that even when grownups love you,<br />
they are sometimes busy with “Grownup Stuff” that keeps them from<br />
really listening. As I got older I projected this onto God. I believed that<br />
he loved me and heard my prayers, but I still felt a bit lost in the vastness<br />
of his creation. My narrative said I had to be patient and wait for<br />
him to get back to me when he had a chance. In the meantime<br />
I would just muddle through as best I could. My narrative had no<br />
concept of a God who is generous with his time and attention, who is<br />
always present and engaged with me even when he is silent.<br />
The week we studied “God is Self-Sacrificing,” we saw a video that<br />
used the tomato as an illustration of how the death of something,<br />
in this case a vegetable, provides nourishment and life. This speaks<br />
to how Jesus’ death can bring us life. But it also got me thinking that<br />
in real life not all tomatoes end up as nourishment; some simply rot<br />
away without providing any benefit to anyone. With all the effort we<br />
put into protecting ourselves, preserving our health and prolonging<br />
our lives, we might be forgetting something more important. Perhaps<br />
it is less about how long we live, or how well we prosper, and more<br />
about how our lives can be spent to nourish others.<br />
All-Campus Mission Project…<br />
40 men will call our<br />
church home! Want to help?<br />
April 13–19<br />
at the Buford Road Campus<br />
Serve Meals: suebmomrn@aol.com<br />
Coordinator: ngbarnes@aol.com<br />
Worship<br />
Reconciliation<br />
Conference<br />
Hosted by<br />
David Bailey<br />
& his ministry<br />
Making a Melody | A.C.T. Int’l<br />
Saturday May 4, 2013<br />
9 a.m.-3:30 p.m.<br />
Registration: $50*<br />
[ * Free for <strong>Bon</strong> <strong>Air</strong> Members ]<br />
For more info:<br />
www.worshipandreconciliation.com<br />
Designed for leaders,<br />
musicians, and<br />
lay people.<br />
Learn tools to<br />
use music,<br />
worship, &<br />
community<br />
in the<br />
reconciliation<br />
process.<br />
3
New Covenant<br />
<strong>Baptist</strong> <strong>Church</strong><br />
has approached<br />
<strong>Bon</strong> <strong>Air</strong> and wishes<br />
to gift 100% of<br />
their assets to our church. The<br />
green light was on for the MultiSite<br />
Team (MST) as Travis first<br />
informed us about this incredible<br />
opportunity last summer.<br />
The New Covenant site was a<br />
perfect fit at a perfect time. But<br />
whoa! Not so fast! Little did we<br />
know there would be so many<br />
yellow lights along the way.<br />
Let me backtrack to an experience<br />
at a spiritual retreat that<br />
MST members had several<br />
months prior to the New Covenant<br />
experience. As we set off<br />
for prayer, searching through<br />
scripture, and listening to God,<br />
we agreed we would focus on<br />
Green Lights, Yellow Lights...But No Red Lights!<br />
By Jim DePasquale<br />
what is God’s will for the MultiSite<br />
Movement. Later, as we<br />
shared our thoughts, it became<br />
clear MultiSite implies a complex<br />
matrix of spiritual, economic,<br />
social and physical components.<br />
No one was able to say<br />
they had a clear revelation of<br />
God’s will. But the collective wisdom<br />
of all present was that the<br />
MultiSite approach is validated<br />
by the Great Commission, and<br />
we should move forward. There<br />
was no red light, but God’s will<br />
was still unknown.<br />
Seeking God’s<br />
will subsequently<br />
became<br />
the cornerstone<br />
of our journey.<br />
Thoughtfully,<br />
the Future Sites<br />
Team (a subteam<br />
of the<br />
MST) was mapping<br />
out potential<br />
campus<br />
locations when<br />
New Covenant<br />
called. All of<br />
their resources,<br />
lock, stock, and barrel, would<br />
come to <strong>Bon</strong> <strong>Air</strong>. Green light!<br />
Sign the papers!<br />
Then we began the more indepth<br />
process. How do we get<br />
enough <strong>Bon</strong> <strong>Air</strong> members to<br />
launch this new campus? What<br />
if this collapses financially? How<br />
much work needs to be done to<br />
their existing facilities? Yellow<br />
lights! Our congregation flashed<br />
even more yellow lights asking,<br />
how do we fill the positions<br />
vacated at the other campuses,<br />
The initial green light<br />
led to many yellow<br />
lights, yellow lights that<br />
demanded adherence<br />
to His ways, but<br />
never a red light!<br />
4<br />
National Day of Prayer<br />
WILL YOU COMMIT TO PRAY?<br />
IT BEGINS WITH YOU!<br />
Thursday, May 2<br />
[ Info available at each campus ]<br />
Hot<br />
Topics<br />
Wednesdays<br />
at the Buford Road<br />
Campus<br />
6:15 p.m.<br />
May 15 - Suicide: Presentation by Teresa McBean &<br />
NorthStar Team<br />
May 22 - <strong>Church</strong> Discipline<br />
May 29 - Human Trafficking - Guest: Corban Addison,<br />
author of A Walk Across the Sun<br />
June 5 - State of Established <strong>Church</strong> in America<br />
June 12 - End Times
and are we stretching ourselves<br />
too thin? Then James River came<br />
along with its potential new site!<br />
Another yellow light?<br />
God ALWAYS<br />
provides the<br />
answers...<br />
In meetings and in our prayers<br />
we regularly acknowledged we<br />
were in over our heads! And yet,<br />
through sound counsel, research,<br />
analysis of facts and figures—and<br />
above all the belief this will be an<br />
extraordinary opportunity—we<br />
were able to see that God AL-<br />
WAYS provides the answers, the<br />
direction, and the wisdom that are<br />
needed for the moment.<br />
As I stand back and look at the<br />
New Covenant experience, I can<br />
honestly say we strived to stay<br />
within God’s will. The prayerled<br />
meetings, the commitment<br />
to integrity and transparency,<br />
the comraderie in the MultiSite<br />
Team, and the utmost concern for<br />
responsible, accountable actions<br />
were the real indications that we<br />
were discovering God’s will. The<br />
initial green light led to many<br />
yellow lights, yellow lights that<br />
demanded adherence to His ways,<br />
but never a red light! Perhaps that<br />
is what He had in mind for us<br />
all along.<br />
Annual<br />
Women’s<br />
Retreat<br />
April 27, 2013<br />
at the Buford Road Campus<br />
For all campuses • For all women<br />
Keynote Speaker:<br />
Rev. Dr. Mary Young<br />
Workshops • Fellowship<br />
• WMU • Fun • Lunch<br />
Registration/Coffee 8:30-9 a.m.<br />
Sessions & Lunch 9-1:30 p.m.<br />
Free preschool child care<br />
available 9 a.m.–12 p.m.<br />
Registration begins March 3.<br />
Contact kburnes@netzero.net<br />
or DietMJ@aol.com<br />
Sponsored by the<br />
TLC Ladies’ Bible Study<br />
WORSHIP<br />
& MUSIC<br />
MINISTRY<br />
Information about our<br />
Associate Pastor of Worship and Music<br />
position with application and<br />
brochure of our Worship and<br />
Music Ministry, church, and<br />
community, can be found at:<br />
www.bonairbaptist.org/<br />
buford_road/news<br />
Send resumes to:<br />
worshipleader@<br />
bonairbaptist.org<br />
5
From<br />
to<br />
Apprehension...<br />
Adventure!<br />
by Julie Lane<br />
VBS Is Coming!<br />
Buford Road Campus/<br />
Robious Hall Campus<br />
June 24-28, 9 a.m.-12 p.m.<br />
at Buford Road Campus<br />
James River Campus<br />
June 24-28, 6:30-8:30 p.m.<br />
Location TBA<br />
New campus on<br />
Patterson Avenue<br />
TBA<br />
Registration begins May 15!<br />
www.bonairbaptist.org<br />
FIRE ON<br />
THE MOUNT<br />
Sermon Series<br />
By Travis Collins,<br />
Senior Pastor<br />
February 17-March 24<br />
Our children attend school in the West End, so when <strong>Bon</strong> <strong>Air</strong> began<br />
talking about New Covenant I was on the alert. One day after<br />
school we were by the Village Shopping Center, and I knew we<br />
were close. But I was confused—how did we pass this church so often<br />
and not notice it? We drove around the block, and I pointed it out to the<br />
kids. Immediately I was excited! What a great location! I spoke with Ed<br />
and asked him if knew of this church. He was vaguely aware, so he drove<br />
by, and he felt the same as me!<br />
...an opportunity<br />
to be on the<br />
mission field<br />
right here<br />
at home.<br />
Ed went to an informational meeting<br />
and brought home the pamphlet<br />
that explained more about<br />
this opportunity. Many questions<br />
were answered and ideas were<br />
brought up that I hadn’t even<br />
thought about. Ed and I believed<br />
this site would be a huge blessing to<br />
the community. There are so many<br />
young families and students in<br />
the area.<br />
We prayed about the decision with our children. We explained that this<br />
is an opportunity to be on the mission field right here at home. They are<br />
nervous about leaving their friends at Buford Road, but we’ve assured<br />
them they will make new friends, and some of their current friends will<br />
actually be coming, too! However, the most difficult part for Ed and me<br />
is leaving the Sunday School class we have been a part of for 12 years.<br />
But Philippians 4:6 comes to mind. “Do<br />
not be anxious about anything, but in<br />
everything, by prayer and petition,<br />
with thanksgiving, present your<br />
requests to God.” There’s a bit of<br />
apprehension when you don’t<br />
know what to expect, but Ed<br />
and I have both felt the Lord’s<br />
peace with this adventure.<br />
6
I <strong>Believe</strong><br />
By Maria Whitaker<br />
The Performance Learning<br />
Cen ter (PLC) is an alternative<br />
learning environment<br />
for students who are not progressing<br />
in a tra ditional high school.<br />
Many of the students have fallen<br />
behind academically due to absenteeism,<br />
academic challenges,<br />
and other life/societal issues. This<br />
program enables students to work<br />
towards earning a high school<br />
diploma, while also encouraging<br />
them to start actively planning their<br />
future and taking the steps necessary<br />
to make their plans a reality.<br />
Left to right: Maria Whitaker and principal Christie<br />
Forrest<br />
we serve are only in the first chapters<br />
of lives with great potential. It<br />
is an honor to have a role in helping<br />
them realize it.<br />
Domestic<br />
Missions<br />
Emphasis<br />
March 2013<br />
goal $85,000<br />
Hands on 2013!<br />
Construction, Clean Up<br />
& Maintenance<br />
S.W. Virginia, Nickelsville<br />
• April 13–20 • June 8–15<br />
• September 14-21<br />
Camp Alkulana,<br />
Millboro Springs, VA<br />
May 31 – June 1<br />
Teaching is one of my passions and<br />
certainly something I feel called<br />
to do. As I work with my stu dents<br />
on a day-to-day basis at the PLC, I<br />
am reminded of biblical truths that<br />
serve as motivation for me to offer<br />
my students the best of my self as<br />
their teacher. My daily motivation<br />
can be encap sulated in basic beliefs<br />
that drive my faith as I attempt to<br />
make a positive impact in the lives<br />
of young people every day.<br />
I believe that…<br />
• He who began the good work will<br />
continue and finish it. Philippians 1:6<br />
Our life’s story is not over until God<br />
Himself completes it. The students<br />
• God is a God of new beginnings.<br />
Isaiah 43:19 We all have had moments<br />
where we wish we could hit<br />
the rewind button and begin again.<br />
The awesome thing about God is<br />
that He does grant do-overs. In this<br />
program, students can “forget the<br />
former” and truly embrace the possibility<br />
of a limitless future.<br />
• With God, all things are possible.<br />
Mark 10:27 Sometimes the big gest<br />
challenge is believing that regardless<br />
of what you’ve done, where<br />
you’ve been, or any other challenges<br />
you might face, with God possibilities<br />
abound. Giv ing up then,<br />
should never be an option.<br />
I encourage you, whether you are a<br />
teacher, parent, or simply a Christfollower,<br />
to take time everyday to<br />
pray for our kids…not just the young<br />
people I work with but youth everywhere.<br />
The pressures and temptations<br />
they face daily are real, but we<br />
serve a God who is more than able<br />
to make something beautiful out of<br />
their lives.<br />
Celebrate<br />
Domestic<br />
Missions<br />
Learn: March 6, 6:15 p.m.<br />
Fellowship Hall at Buford Road.<br />
Hear how former Muslim Faysal<br />
Sharif became a Christian. Learn<br />
about Virginia <strong>Baptist</strong>s befriending<br />
Muslims.<br />
Pray: March 9, 8:45–11:45 a.m.<br />
Gather as a group at the Buford<br />
Road Campus, then go to campuses<br />
and ministry sites to prayerwalk!<br />
Give: Anytime! Help meet our<br />
Domestic Missions Offering goal<br />
of $85,000!<br />
Go: Now! Serve in our city, state<br />
or nation. See 2013 Ministry &<br />
Evangelism Opportunities on the<br />
BABC website.<br />
For mission opportunities/events<br />
go to www.bonairbaptist.org or call<br />
Judy Whitehurst, 237.7894<br />
7
Buford Road Campus<br />
2531 Buford Road<br />
Richmond, VA 23235<br />
bonairbaptist.org<br />
MEETINGS<br />
>> Quarterly Business Meeting: April 17, 6:15 p.m.<br />
in the Buford Road Commons<br />
David Bailey<br />
& Arrabon 2<br />
A night of<br />
worship<br />
Arrabon<br />
style!<br />
Friday,<br />
March 8,<br />
7:30 p.m.<br />
Buford Road<br />
Commons,<br />
Free<br />
Arrabon means “a foretaste of<br />
things to come.” Gathering Worship<br />
Leader David Bailey and the<br />
band will lead in worship, sing<br />
songs old and new, and use their<br />
creativity to express what the<br />
diversity of worship in heaven will<br />
look like.<br />
For more info:<br />
www.makingamelody.com<br />
Kakki Aydlotte, A Woman<br />
after God’s Own Heart<br />
By Eugenia Frieburger<br />
Kakki Aydlotte, Associate Pastor for Member Mobilization,<br />
retired from BABC at the end of 2012. Dr. Eugenia<br />
Freiburger, friend of BABC and fellow advocate for<br />
member mobilization, writes of Kakki’s deep faith and<br />
her ministry to people.<br />
Kakki is a woman with a heart for God and a heart for people. She<br />
and I became friends many years ago when our paths crossed in<br />
lay mobilization training sessions for Virginia churches. Through the<br />
years, I have found her to be a deeply devoted Christ follower. Her prayers,<br />
cards, phone calls and spiritual conversations have blessed many folks,<br />
including me. While Kakki loves processes, methodologies, and teaching,<br />
she loves people more!<br />
Kakki lives out her faith as a mother, wife, grandmother,<br />
friend, prayer warrior, mobilizer of people and servant<br />
of God and His <strong>Church</strong>. Well done, Kakki. You are a great<br />
friend to all!
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